Warehouse Audit - Nonconformance or not - That is the question

[JaneB]

Re: Nonconformance or not- that is the question

And, they have these guys with flashing lights on their cars that write up nonconformances when they catch you. Try to ask them to be 'mature'....

And how do you feel about them if they catch you doing, say a teeny amount (say 3 miles/km or whatever) over the speed limit on one single occasion, very briefly before you slowed to under the limit again?

 

[Sidney Vianna]

And ,no, it may not affect the on time delivery to the customer most of the time. But the costs involved in searching for the product, staying late to do it for the company, working extra hours to essentially cover for this process (assuming it is more wide spread), if captured properly, can be the data that the warehouse needs to get a better functioning system within the warehouse.

As I said in the past, no external audit and NC's can replace good management. You put yourself, as an auditor, in an impossible situation. Because, as you know very well, the minute you decide to report the issue was an NC, then the protocol is for them to implement corrective action, which means that the problem should not recur. But, as you already agreed, there is no warehouse which can guarantee 100% accuracy:

I agree that there is probably not a warehouse in on the planet that is 100% accurate -otherwise they would not bother with cycle counts etc.

So, how can you deem your NC closed, if there will always be products out of place? Unless, you determine that 99.2% is good enough, or 86% or 73%, before you close the NC. Either way, you as the external auditor would have to determine a minimum level of performance before closing the corrective action request.

Or, the organization at hand simply deletes the requirement from their own command media, so a NC can no longer be justified. Would it make the situation any better?

For me it is clear - its a nonconformance. Its required. It wasnt done.

The only problem with living life in black and white is that thing called reality which tends to come in shades of gray.

 

[Rahul Thakur]

I was recently in a warehouse auditing to ISO 9001 and observed the forklift operator using the "picklist" to stage material ready for shipping. The location of the material was documented on the picklist. For example: Product A in location BD15. He had scatched over the location and written BA12. I asked him what had happened and he replied that the material was not in the location identified on the picklist. He then went to the computer system and changed the location. Upon questioning he said this happened once in a while in the warehouse. I asked him if he would write a corrective action for it (under clause 8.5.2 of ISO 9001:2008) and he indicated that it was too small an issue to warrent a documented corrective action.

Was it a nonconformity? Well since it was a non-fullfillment of a requirement (the requirment being that it should have been in the position it was indicated on the picklist) I would believe so. The organization had no idea that it was a non-conformance. When explained they indicated that the paperwork to document a corrective action for this issue would not add any value since they were able to quickly find the product (albeit in another location).

My question (for those of you that have years of auditing expoerience): Does it require a Corrective Action to be documented? Could they capture it under 8.3 as a Nonconformity and therefore "disposition it", gather a trend and then write a nonconformance? Or what?

This, in my experience, is not an uncommon reaction to "small stuff". My viewpoint is that this can be an indicator of where the organization is being inefficient and gather the data will help address the issue (more) permanently.

This deviation would fall under the clause 7.5.5 of ISO 9001-2008, Identification, Handling,Packaging, Storage & Protection.
The violation of a documented system is definitely a non conformance, even though a minor one.If the same trend was observed in some more samples it can be raised as an minor non conformance. But of it was only a once off case,then it can be included as an OFI ( Opportunity For improvement ).
The objective of an audit is not of raising non conformances but to add value to the auditee's processes.

 

[AndyN]

This deviation would fall under the clause 7.5.5 of ISO 9001-2008, Identification, Handling,Packaging, Storage & Protection.

Why? Wasn't the item 'identified', 'handled', 'packaged', stored' and 'protected'? Could you please explain for those readers, why you feel there's a non-conformity with these requirements? Thanks!

 

[SteelMaiden]

It sounds like the employee found the moved material, noted it for reassignment. Just because you put something in one place doesn't mean that it can necessarily stay there forever. For example. I used to work in a cold finish plant where bar stock was finished, and stored, sometimes as stock, sometime until the truck came in. Now, a max bundle weight was 4,000 to 6,000 pounds depending on product, and sometimes only 2,000 for really small stuff. Bundles were placed in racks, each rack had a numeric and directional designation, then the racks were divided into slot bins also numbered. What happened when the bundle you wanted was the third from the top? The top two got moved into other slot bins. In your scenario, that would be a nonconformance.

You found one item. You don't tell us that there were multiples. You don't tell us that that one item out of place caused any delays to delivery or any other complaints by customer (or even internal). It appears that the organization had a method of reconciling inventory moves, and we are not here specifically to judge that. It seems to me, lacking any of the other answers, I could not justify issuing a corrective action request. Either offer an opportunity for improvement, or get some objective evidence that the process is not working and it is causing a problem, imho.